The Hackers

Because what D-Wave is trying to do is so cool, I get to talk about it at lots of interesting places; everything from the 2003 TED conference to Supercomputing 2008. Our approach to building quantum computers has been covered in a lot of different places (see sidebar in the blog) and a Harvard Business School case study. I earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of British Columbia with Philip Stamp, studying the effects of nuclear spins on decoherence in molecular magnets. Prior to UBC I went to school at McMaster University, where I did engineering physics with a solid state devices focus. Since D-Wave was founded in 1999, we’ve managed to team with many excellent top-tier blue chip investors, including a round led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ)—the first ever investment by a US venture capital firm in quantum computing, and a substantial investment by Goldman Sachs.

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Dr. Suzanne Gildert (a.k.a. physicsandcake)

Dr. Suzanne Gildert

I’m interested in the big picture: Can Physics tell us about what it is possible to do, build, and be within our Universe?

During the day I work for D-Wave Systems, helping to build and sell the world’s first commercial quantum computers. Quantum computers are a totally new paradigm in computing, and will be a revolutionary addition to the family of modern computing tools. Factoring? Encryption? No. These systems are much better applied to artificial intelligence, machine learning, genomics, bio-informatics, natural language processing and next-generation search. I’m currently building software applications in these areas and running them on our quantum computers. I’m especially interested in using Deep Learning for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). I received my PhD in experimental quantum physics from the University of Birmingham (UK). My other interests include science communication, science fiction, art, programming, web design, building robots, 3D printing, snowboarding, electronics and entrepreneurship.

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Dr. Mohammad Amin

Dr. Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin obtained a BSc degree in electrical engineering from Shiraz University (Iran, 1991), a MSc degree on the foundations of quantum mechanics from Sharif University of Technology (Iran, 1993), and a PhD degree in condensed matter physics from the University of British Colombia (Canada, 1999). He is currently a senior scientist at D-Wave Systems Inc. and an adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University.
Mohammad has been involved in research in a variety of areas including strongly correlated electron systems, high Tc superconductivity, grain boundary junctions, Josephson phenomena, decoherence theory, superconducting quantum circuits and qubits, quantum computation, entanglement, and quantum phase transitions.

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Chris Rich

Chris Rich

Quantum computers are as awesome as their potential applications! The tool is as interesting as that which it crafts!

At D-Wave, I am one in a team of people that gets to take our newest chips from Fab down their first cold steps to becoming processors. My expertise is in the D-Wave One’s™ cooling and magnetic environment engineering. However, my interests lie in a broad general understanding our system from waveform to qubit readout, from problem to solution. Taking advantage of D-Wave’s open culture allows me to regularly gain insight from our design engineers, algorithm developers, and other team members.

My enthusiasm for the technology in the system also extends to the applications it will enable. Because the class of problems QC’s can enhance occurs everywhere, I love explaining to people why they should be excited about this technology, be they chemists, school teachers or truck drivers.

Outside of D-Wave, you can find me skiing Vancouver’s local mountains, traveling, enjoying sushi on the Drive, or lurking on Reddit.